Thursday, August 6, 2009

Take Action! From NEDA/Eating Disorders Coalition

Call your Senators today!

Lautenberg, Frank R. - (D - NJ) (202) 224-3224

Menendez, Robert - (D - NJ) (202) 224-4744

Background:

After years of hard work by mental health organizations such as the Eating Disorders Coalition (EDC), as well as other advocates and consumers, Congress passed the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 last year. The bill requires the Departments of Labor (DOL), Health and Human Services (HHS) and Treasury to issue regulations before the effective date for the Act which is January 1, 2010. It is essential the regulations are issued to avoid misinterpretation of the law and to ensure access to critical mental health and addiction services.

Senators Al Franken, Ted Kennedy, Sheldon Whitehouse and Jack Reed are circulating a Dear Colleague Letter in the Senate which will be sent to the Secretaries of the three departments responsible for issuing the regulations insisting they act quickly and consider the comments that were filed in response to the request for information (RFI).

The EDC provided comments to the agencies earlier this year urging the agencies to interpret the law in a manner that would include eating disorders coverage. In order to make sure that years of hard work and advocacy pay off let's call our Senators and ask them to sign onto this letter with Senator Al Franken and colleagues!

The Message:

"Hi my name is XX. I am a constituent calling about the implementation of mental health parity regulations. I would like to urge the Senator to make sure mental health parity regulations are issued by October 3, 2009 by signing onto Sen. Franken's, Kennedy’s, Whitehouse's and Reed’s Dear Colleague Letter by 5:00 pm on August 6th. It is essential that eating disorders treatment is specifically addressed in this legislation. Thank you for passing that information on to him/her."

Thanks! Every voice matters - we've had many examples of how one person writing a letter or making a phone call to their legislators makes a difference.

Once you make your call email manager@eatingdisorderscoalition.org and tell us who you called! Thanks so much!